Southern Air Transport

Southern Air Transport (SAT), based in Miami, Florida, was, in its final incarnation, a cargo airline. However, it started life as an irregular air carrier (later known as a supplemental air carrier), a type of carrier defined and tightly controlled until 1978 by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), a now defunct Federal agency that, at the time, closely regulated almost all US commercial air transportation. From 1965 onward, such airlines were charter carriers. Up until 1965, they were charter/scheduled hybrids. For much of that time the carrier was owned by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (1960–1973).

The carrier was also known for its role in the Iran-Contra scandal of the mid-1980s, during which SAT transported arms to Iran and to the US-backed mercenary army in Central America known as the Contras, which were fighting the revolutionary Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

History

Early days

Southern Air Transport (SAT) was initially a sole proprietorship of F.C. "Doc" Moor, a pilot who had flown for a number of airlines, including Pan Am. The initial period of activity lasted from February 1947 to January 1949, when Moor suspended operations to work for the Venezuelan carrier RANSA. Southern Air Transport was incorporated in Florida on 31 October 1949, Moor being president. SAT flew mostly cargo, but also some passenger traffic. SAT was an irregular air carrier, a type of airline later known as a supplemental air carrier. In 1953, 37% of SAT's revenue was military and it had two C-46 aircraft, producing a break-even financial result.

CIA era

The CIA purchased the airline on 5 August 1960, for $260,000 to Doc Moor and $40,000 to Stanley G. Williams. The CIA purchased SAT after consulting the CAB, driven by a desire to have access to heavy-lift non-governmental aircraft for CIA operational purposes without incurring significant ongoing expense. During the time the CIA owned the carrier, the CAB knew as did appropriate Congressional committees. The CIA provided the carrier with funding, allowing it to acquire larger aircraft and expand.''CIA Sale of Airline A Bargain'', Miami Herald, 10 March 1975
/ref> In the three years 1957–1959, annual revenue averaged $400,000, with the military accounting for zero revenue 1957 and 1958 and less than 25% of revenue in 1959. By contrast, in the first three full years of CIA ownership, 1961–1963, revenue averaged almost $5 million per year, with the military accounting for over 80% in each of those years and profitability much improved. The CIA apparently also influenced a CAB award to provide the carrier with authority to fly civilian charters to Asia to support the Vietnam war.
/ref> In July 1962, Stanley G. Williams, previously treasurer, became president, with Moor becoming chairman. The airline had four Douglas DC-6s, three C-46s and a C-45. Until his death in 1972, Doc Moor devoted much of his time to hydroplane racing, becoming national champion many times in his displacement class, sometimes delivering his boats to races using the airline.

SAT was part of group of CIA "proprietary" carriers and related businesses, including Air America, Air Asia, Civil Air Transport and Intermountain Aviation, under the Pacific Corporation parent company run by George A. Doole Jr.. The airline held itself out to the public as just another charter carrier. A 1965 advertisement in The Miami News used the tag line "You can't measure Southern Air's service" and noted its capabilities in shipping livestock, household goods and cars. However, SAT's logo was an eight-point compass — the CIA has a 16 point compass on its seal. In 1966, SAT ordered a Boeing 727 (specifically for use on its military transport contract in Asia) and in 1968, Lockheed L-100s, the civilian version of the C-130 Hercules military cargo aircraft. In 1970 the CAB gave the airline authority to use the L-100s for outsized cargo worldwide.

Although SAT was substantially bigger than before it was bought by the CIA, it remained small by contrast to the industry, whatever the size of the overall CIA proprietary aviation business. In 1969, SAT revenues were $11 million, whereas all US supplemental air carriers together were $361 million, against US scheduled carrier revenues of $8.8 billion. In 1969 the Atlantic fleet was six aircraft, operating out of Miami, San Juan and the Bahamas; the Pacific fleet was four aircraft, operating passenger and cargo flights for the military out of Yokota, Japan and Tainan, Taiwan. In January 1970, it was one of a consortium of airlines carrying relief to Biafra with L-100s. The L-100s ranged widely, one trip in 1971 traveling over 100,000 miles in 310 flight hours using five separate crews to Europe, Greenland, the Solomon Islands, Australia and within the United States before returning to Miami.

Transition from CIA

In September 1971, a former CIA officer went public about Air America, accusing SAT of being a CIA front that existed for the purpose of providing the CIA with a way to send personnel and munitions to fight a Latin American clandestine war. Moor and Williams denied it. At the time the Asian fleet was two 727s and the Atlantic fleet was two DC-6s and three L-100s. In June 1972 the Asian operation was shut as a result of the wind-down in US military operations in Vietnam, and in March 1973, Williams was trying to buy the airline from the other two "owners". On August 30 it was revealed the other two "owners" were CIA nominees and Williams was trying to buy it from the CIA which had decided to exit its proprietary airlines. The CAB was having secret hearings about it, and other US airlines were irate at having competed against the government and wanted SAT shut down. Reports came out of past SAT missions to global hotspots in Africa and the Caribbean.''Caribbean and Congo Role Is Laid To C.I.A.'s Airline'', New York Times, 1 September 1973
/ref> To get irate competitors off its back, SAT first offered to give up its certification to fly commercial charters in the Pacific and Latin America. However, it ultimately agreed to give up its supplemental certification entirely, becoming an uncertificated carrier, which had the effect of removing it from CAB jurisdiction. Williams bought the carrier on December 31, 1973 for less than its book equity; however, the airline had been stripped of its certification as a common carrier.

Post-CIA

In 1974 and 1975, the largest customer for SAT was Texaco, in 1976 it was the Air Force of Iran and SAT's net income in those years was $418,000, $844,000 and a loss of $303,000. On each of 1 January 1975 and 25 October 1975, Willams sold James H. Bastian a 20% stake in SAT. In 1977, as a result of new legislation requiring any carrier working for the Department of Defense to be certificated, Southern Air Transport applied for, and received, domestic "property" (i.e. cargo) supplemental certification, during which the airline represented that the CIA had no further involvement with the carrier. The CAB noted that certificating SAT would break the monopoly that Trans International Airlines had in the U.S. in terms of certificated carriers with the L-100 Hercules.

SAT was sold again in 1979, this time to James H. Bastian – described by the ''Los Angeles Times'' in 1986 as "a top-notch Washington, D.C., aviation attorney who had worked with Doole at the Pacific Corp. from 1961 to 1974, as secretary, vice president and general counsel."Barry Bearak, ''Los Angeles Times'', 26 December 1986
Intrigue Trails Airline Linked to Iran, Contras
/ref> Under Bastian the company expanded its revenues (from $9.8m in 1982 to $38.m in 1985) and had over 500 employees in 1986.

Iran–Contra affair

As part of Oliver North's activities to trade arms for hostages with Iran and to support the contra rebellion in Nicaragua, Southern Air carried four loads of US weapons bound for Iran from the US to Israel, and on the return flights carried weapons destined for the US-backed right-wing Contra rebels in Nicaragua from Portugal.
On 5 October 1986, a C-123K, loaded with weapons, failed to return from a scheduled drop to the Contras in Nicaragua. In charge of the operation was Felix Rodriguez. He was the logistics officer for airlifts of weapons and supplies from the Ilopango air base, in El Salvador, to the jungle hide-outs of the Contras. Rodriguez did not notify the Defense Department or the CIA but rather attempted to get word about the missing C-123K to Donald Gregg, the National Security Advisor for Vice President George H. W. Bush. The shooting down of a flight helped expose the Iran-Contra scandal. Logbooks retrieved from the wreckage linked SAT to a history of involvement with the CIA]. The logs documented several SAT flights to Barranquilla, during October 1985.

In the same time period Wanda Palacios told the FBI that SAT was running drugs. She worked in the early 1980s for Colombia's Medellin Cartel and had direct knowledge of the cartel's dealings with the CIA and the Contras. She brought her testimony to US Senator John Kerry. Wanda Palacios had witnessed in 1983-1985 in Barranquilla, the arrival of SAT planes loaded with weapons for the cartel, which would then send them to the Contras. The planes would return to the US loaded with cocaine. Palacio stated that Jorge Luis Ochoa Vásquez himself explained to her the guns-for-drugs deal with the CIA to supply the Contras. Ms. Palacios' story was subsequently established to be false. Southern Air Transport v. Post-Newsweek, 568 So. 2d 927 (Fla. 3d DC 1990).

While Iran Contra was in operation Southern Air Transport had obtained a hangar at Dover Air Force Base, a United States Air Force base located southeast of the city of Dover, Delaware.

1986–1999

SAT operated out of Kenya during the Rwandan Civil War using L-100 Hercules aircraft. They also recruited and tried to recruit Canadian service members and some members of Relief Air Transport, the Canadian airline operating C-46s in Kenya, into their group.

SAT operated out of Asmara, Ethiopia, (now Eritrea), during the Ethiopian famine of the late '80s. It hauled thousands of tons of relief supplies in the middle of a hot war under contracts for the UN, Caritas Internationalis, Lutheran World Federation, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, saving thousands of lives.

SAT was also heavily involved in famine and disaster relief efforts in other areas of Africa. SAT supported the airlift into southern Sudan from the late '80s into the middle '90s. At one time, SAT Hercules aircraft were the sole food supply for the refugee camps in the Juba, Sudan area, during the north-south war. Again, SAT provided food for the helpless and saved countless thousands of lives.

SAT's extensive operations included both offshore and domestic operations and SAT aircraft touched down on all seven continents and in well over a hundred countries. SAT aircraft were based in Papua New Guinea, the U.K, and very commonly in various African countries, as well as other offshore locations, with crews rotating in and out as demand required.

The crews were recruited from both ex-military and civilian-trained personnel. SAT consistently performed challenging tasks on a wide variety of contracts, many in disturbed areas such as Somalia, both prior to and after the Battle of Mogadishu. SAT Hercules aircraft also operated in Angola, Mozambique, Djibouti, Senegal, and the DRC.

SAT's crew training was maintained to high standards. The aircraft were consistently well-maintained, often under the most difficult of circumstances.

Prior to the military cutback during the Clinton administration, SAT supported the U.S. Air Force's Logair cargo system, as well as the U.S. Navy's Quicktrans systems, operating much more efficiently than the military could using their own airlift. SAT also flew extensively in Europe and west Asia in support of both the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy, basing out of Ramstein Air Base near Landstuhl, Germany, and RAF Mildenhall in East Anglia, U.K.

SAT carried cargo of all possible description, from hauling newspapers from the U.K. to Ireland at night in winter across the Irish sea, to carrying breeding horses to Brazil. Additionally, SAT was entrusted with King Tutankhamun's treasure. One notable 747 mission involved hauling a load of lions from Amsterdam to Johannesburg, South Africa, the lions being on loan from the Amsterdam Zoo to the Johannesburg Zoo.

SAT Lockheed L-100 Hercules, Boeing 707s, Douglas DC-8s and Boeing 747s served many commercial carriers carrying outsize cargo and hazardous materials. It also performed routine U.S. Embassy supply missions throughout Latin America, covering all of Central and South America, as well as Mexico.

One of SAT's most notable accomplishments was a three-year contract supporting Chevron's drilling operations in the central highlands of Papua New Guinea, operating from a base at Nadzab airport near Lae. Chevron was totally dependent on SAT L-100s, as no roads reached the massive oil recovery operation near Lake Kutubu. Papua New Guinea provides some of the world's most challenging flying conditions, due both to the rapidly changing tropical monsoons that sweep the island nation, and the rugged terrain of the country.

During the Desert Shield and Desert Storm operations, SAT's accomplishments became widely known. Both the company and the participating crew members received performance awards as members of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet from a grateful U.S. Air Force.

Relocation to Columbus

In 1995, Edmund James, president of James and Donohew Development Services, negotiated with SAT and announced that it was locating to Rickenbacker International Airport in Columbus, Ohio. Much of the Hong Kong-to-Rickenbacker cargo was for Leslie Wexner's The Limited Inc. Governor George Voinovich stated: “I am extremely pleased to welcome Southern Air Transport to Ohio, as it will be the first airline to have its world headquarters located at Rickenbacker Airport. This will help Columbus tremendously in becoming a world-class inland port.”

Bankruptcy

In late 1998 it tried to merge with other aviation companies, but it filed for bankruptcy on October 1 in Columbus, Ohio - the same day that the CIA Inspector General released a report detailing allegations of Southern Air Transport's involvement in drug trafficking in connection with US-backed and funded right-wing Contras in Nicaragua. Bob Fitrakis
Spook Air
Columbus Free Press, 25 October 2018

On March 10, 1999, the assets of Southern Air Transport were purchased by Southern Air, and the new carrier began operations in November 1999.

Fleet

August 1971:

* 2 Boeing B-727C
* 2 Lockheed L-100-20 Hercules
* 1 Lockheed L-100-30 Hercules
* 2 Douglas DC-6A/B

''World Airline Fleets 1979'' (copyright 1979) shows Southern Air Transport with:

* 2 Lockheed L-100-20 Hercules
* 1 Lockheed L-100-30 Hercules

''1987–88 World Airline Fleets'' (copyright 1987) shows Southern Air Transport with:

* 8 Boeing 707-300C
* 2 Lockheed L-100-20 Hercules
* 6 Lockheed L-100-30 Hercules
* 1 Lockheed L-1329 JetStar II

Over the course of its existence, Southern Air Transport operated 23 distinct Lockheed L-100 Hercules aircraft.

Southern Air Transport also operated the following jet aircraft types at various times during its existence:https://www.airliners.net, photos of Southern Air Transport Boeing 727, 747 and Douglas DC-8

* Boeing 727-100C
* Boeing 747-200F
*Douglas DC-8 - ''including DC-8-21F, Super DC-8-71F and Super DC-8-73F freighter aircraft''

See also

* Air America
*Air Asia
*Civil Air Transport
* Rendition aircraft
* St. Lucia Airways
* Tepper Aviation
*Evergreen International Aviation
* Silk Way Airlines
* Supplemental air carrier
* Uncertificated carrier
*List of defunct airlines of the United States

Further reading

* (Self published history of Southern Air Transport from its founding in 1947 to its purchase by the CIA in 1960)
*William Marcy: ''The Politics of Cocaine: How U.S. Foreign Policy has created a Thriving Drug Industry in Central and South America''. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2010.
*Jonathan Marshall, Peter Dale Scott, Jane Hunter: ''The Iran-Contra Connection - Secret Teams and Covert Operations in Reagan Era''. Boston: South End Press, 1987,
* Bob Fitrakis
''Spook Air''
Columbus Free Press, 25 October 2018
*Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero:
El rol de la CIA en el mundo contemporáneo
', Revista de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad de Puerto Rico.

References

{{Airlines of the United States, state=collapsed

Central Intelligence Agency front organizations
Defunct airlines of the United States
Iran–Contra affair
Airlines based in Florida
Airlines based in Ohio
Airlines established in 1949
Airlines disestablished in 1998